Cardio Theater: Promoting fitness among movie lovers

Within the $22 billion yearly health and fitness center industry, gyms vie for business with amenities like smoothie bars and inventive classes. Now some stores are also looking to attract peoples with just a little help from Hollywood.

Tony Hernandez says he has not payed a single visit to the cinema theatre since he became a member of Retro Fitness in Maryland 90 days ago. The fitness center has a cardio theatre — with big cinema screen, surround audio along with fitness accessories including best treadmills and elliptical machines so people can work away while catching their favorite film.

“It actually feels as though a cinema except rather than sitting you’re jogging,” Hernandez said in an interview. “It distracts you from actually jogging, which a whole lot of men and women hate, so you’re just viewing a movie and by enough time the movie’s over you’ve run like three, four kilometers.”

At Retro Fitness, the movie changes daily. Most choices veer toward light-hearted comedies or action flicks like “G.I. Joe.” The fitness center, which charges a regular membership cost of $19.99, also takes film requests from its members.

Gyms fitness centers that choose showing videos on-site must pay an yearly charge for each and every location to the FILM Licensing Company, much as a normal cinema would.

Assistant administrator Sharron Lipford says the cardio movie theater makes visiting the gym an easy task for some customers. “Their mind is lost in the movie which mainly distracts them from thinking about workout and feeling tired too soon,”.

Emma Shebest says she prefers action videos for their intensity level, but any movie could work as long as it’s engaging enough to stick with through the end. “They played out ‘Frozen’ last week and I viewed the whole thing,”,

And there’s another advantage of working out in the cardio theatre: “It’s dark so no person is judging you,” she added.